Saturday, August 30, 2008

My beloved mother, rest her eternal soul, would have been 94 years old today, had she lived to see it. By the time she passed on, she was quite decrepit and her mind had left her. I deeply wish, however, that she had retained her faculties and that she had lived another decade. I miss her very much.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

I have been quite fortunate on my many forays onto eBay, only having been duped once, and that by an idiot who may have actually believed that "Self Published" equated a sheaf of poorly done photocopies. Otherwise I have been very lucky, and, as time has gone by, I have become more careful.

Nonetheless some of the criminal behavior I find on eBay when hunting for antiques truly startles me. When searching antiquities the biggest thing is, of course, misrepresentation. Things like the numerous modern Chinese made chess sets that are being sold as antiques are obvious and malicious attempts to bilk the uninitiated or the uninformed, and, I am sorry to say, I do wish that eBay would make some attempt to regulate these, but I do not know how.

On the other hand, things like the pair of mismatched cufflinks I found this evening that are being sold as "Two Vintage Antique Lapel Pins Studs Gold Tone" offends me on so very many levels. Either the seller is painfully stupid, or he is practicing upon the deep stupidity of his clientele. I suspect the latter, but, in either case, he needs to be run off of eBay on some sort of digital analog for a rail, if not as a criminal then as an idiot.